Relaunching The Savvy Guyde

Time to kick the tires & light the fires. Let's launch.

Okay, your Wingman has been a slack ass. I've neglected you. I've allowed the site to go a bit fallow and you, my dear readers, have been left to wander in the dark without my guiding light. In 2015, I shall endeavor to rectify this, but I need your help.

I'm here to dispense advice and helpful hints, to impart to you my wisdom gleaned the hard way, from brutal life experience and from my own research. But sometimes even I don't know what you don't know, so you have to tell me. What do you need and want to know? What questions do you need answers to? What sort of articles do you want to see here?

Do you want more cooking know-how? Do you want to learn a bit about wines or beers or spirits? Subtle fashion tips? Grooming and manscaping? Questions about pleasing the other human on your mattress? Hell, do you have questions about guns? Your Wingman is a shooter and used to carry guns for a living in a previous life. I'm a versatile dude, as should you be.

If you have a question or a request, you can always drop an email to steve@lightningman.org and in the subject put Savvy Guyde so I know it ain't junk mail. Or just leave a question in the comments; I read every comment that comes to the site.

I fully intend to keep up with music that doesn't suck in my Now Hear This series, and plan to keep you fed with the Starvin' Like Marvin series. And I'm renaming the series of New Stuff articles under the name of Test Flight, keeping with the Wingman theme. See what I did there? Clever bastard, I am.

So keep on reading, and tell your friends. Let's grow the site and all will be right in the world.

Who's got your back? I do.

And away we go!

Smelling like a million bucks

Dear Wingman, 
                         Can you suggest the best cologne for picking up hotties at the club?
                                                                                                Sincerely,
                                                                                                 Scentless in Seattle

Guys, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as your Virtual Wingman, someone's gotta level with you.

Most of you stink.

It's not your fault. You bathe. You use a big name scented body wash. You have a great shampoo that smells terrific. You spritz your coiff with a bitchin' pomade. You use freshy fresh deodorant with a guaranteed anti-perspirant. You toss on the body spray that they say drives the wimminz insane. You add a liberal splash of that expensive trendy cologne they advertised in the glossy ad in your favorite men's magazine you read when you're on the toilet.

Yes, we know you read on the shitter. We all do it. We're guys.

And this, my friend is why you stink.

But Wingman, whatever do you mean?


Smell that magazine you were reading. Smells like a dozen cologne ads fighting each other, right? Because they are.

Think about it, Chummy. You are a veritable cornucopia of clashing scents. You have the natural smell of your body, and then you use a scented soap or body wash, and then your pit-stick likely has another smell, your shampoo (if you have hair) has another smell. If you use a styling product it may or may not have a scent. If you have a body spray that's likely yet another flavor. And then, pile on yet another layer of scent with cologne? Dude, you're so wrong. The phrase "You smell like a French Whorehouse" comes to mind.

If you think about it and do it right, there's no reason for you not to coordinate your products and smell like a million bucks.

First off, a small disclaimer. I do not work for AXE. I am not being paid by AXE to advertise for them. I simply use the stuff and like it. That said, seriously, AXE is one of the smartest things to happen to men's hygiene in years. At first I resisted trying their stuff because the advertising was so totally out of my demographic. They made it sound like all you had to do was roll out of bed at 8PM, spray on some AXE (or their competitor, the now-defunct TAG) and the lay-tays would climb into your lap & start removing their clothes. I mean seriously, the advertising was that overt. The gist was, "Use this and get laid immediately.", no matter if you're a hideous CHUD or not.

As an aside, the downside to this is that  guys who actually were CHUDs were all butthurt when they still weren't getting any, and a lot of guys started to think that a can of spray-on Whore Gravy was a substitute for actual bathing and clean clothes. Dudes, especially teen boys, would SOAK in it.

Gentlemen, allow me to assure you that there is no substitute for washing your ass and wearing clean and serviceable clothes. Proper grooming is essential to being a member of polite society.

The great thing about AXE is that they really opened up their line of products to make a complete grooming line. This allows you to coordinate the fragrance of your body wash, deodorant, and body spray, with neutral-scented hair products, with no need for an expensive cologne whatsoever.

Wingman, why you be hatin' on cologne, yo?

I used to wear cologne too when I was younger. Started as a kid, really. My mom always thought it was cute to drop a couple trial-size bottles of shitty aftershave in my Christmas stocking every year; those great relics of the 70s like English Leather, Brut, and Jovan Sex Appeal (or Jovan Musk). Yes, in retrospect that's kinda creepy, getting Sex Appeal from your mom at age 9 but she was just helping a shy nonathletic bookworm kid feel more manly. In junior high I had a bottle of Goeffrey Beene's Grey Flannel and only used it sparingly, so that after awhile it just smelled like vinegar and spice. (Yeah, guys, cologne needs to be used, lest it go bad). In high school the transition was made to Pierre Cardin and then Drakkar Noir, like every 80s kid.

As an adult, I transitioned over to what was to be my signature scent for awhile, HUGO by Hugo Boss. I wore it the bulk of the 90s.

Then around 2002 I changed over to a different scent from the same guy. BOSS by Hugo Boss. I liked it a lot. Then I met the future Mrs. Wingman and... she hated it. The smell made her gag. And herein lies a lesson:

Just because YOU think it smells good, the lady folk may not like the smell on you. Every scent has to also mingle with your natural body chemistry and smells and some may not go together in a pleasant way.

I now had a $60.00 bottle of Smell Goods that was gonna be a waste. I held onto it until I realized our relationship was headed in a permanent direction and then tossed it out. She loved the original Hugo on me but since I was wearing it so seldom I just kept a small travel bottle for date nights out. Since I started using the AXE products I stopped wearing cologne altogether for the above stated reasons. I came to the conclusion that it was of no need to wear an expensive scent on top of more scents and clash them all together to smell like the dumpster at a French whorehouse.

Guys, here is advice you can stash away as Essential Wingman Gospel: What you think smells good on you may or may not. Seek some smell advice from a trusted lady friend or significant other who will be brutally honest with you. Before you buy a full sized version of ANYTHING with a new scent, try it as a sample first. They make trial sizes of almost anything now, so test-drive it for 99 cents and see if it works with your natural chemistry. If not, move on. If it works, get the larger size and the invest in the corresponding products to coordinate your fragrances in a complimentary manner.

More Gospel: Use the spray sparingly. Do not douse yourself. Despite what the ads say, don't cross yourself arm pit to arm pit and across the chest and verily bathe in it. Less is more. Overdoing it will, again, make you smell like rotting vegetation.

The downside to my use of AXE stuff is that I'll get used to a great scent, and then they discontinue it or I simply can no longer find it. This just recently happened when I could no longer find the TWIST product line. It had happened before when I used CLIX, and VICE. I experimented with EXCITE and it was bland on me. I tried ANARCHY and Mrs. Wingman almost vomited. I smelled that DARK TEMPTATION and I almost vomited. Another downside is that not all of the body washes will have a coordinated deodorant and body spray. I love SNAKE PEEL but there are no sidekicks. The same with SHOCK and DEEP SPACE.

There is also a line of products very similar to AXE from Old Spice, with coordinated layering products of shower gels, deodorants, and body sprays. I played hell finding a scent I liked, and when I tried it out it was pretty weak. Some of you may find them satisfactory though, so don't let my experience dissuade you.

Thus endeth the sermon.

Go forth, minions, and stink no more!

Who's got your back? I do...

The Straight Skinny on Shaving

Face it, fellas, nobody actually enjoys shaving. It's a task, a chore, a means to an end, something that has to be done and separates us from lesser primates.

However, it doesn't have to be a disaster. You don't have to look like you got caught in an unexpected fight with a vegetable peeler. I'm a somewhat hairy bastard, and me & the razor have been chummy-chummy for about 25 years now. I'll see if I can impart some helpful tips, both on taming your beard but also the all important shaving of the cranium. I will not, however, give you the How To Shave speech filled with Against the Grain vs. With the Grain crap. You're a grown-assed man and you know HOW to shave. I'm just offering tips to make it easier.

I think most guys experiment with shaving long about the time we hit sixteen, or so. We're desperate to look older and feel more adult, and we somehow think that by growing facial hair and shaving we're that much closer to manhood. Little do we realize that the sooner we start shaving it off and growing it back, the sooner we start a lifetime of scraping our faces with sharpened metal on a regular basis. At first we relish that it grows back faster and coarser, because we're suddenly all manly & shit, and then after a few years you yearn for those childhood peachfuzz days. A lot of us remember either mock-shaving alongside Dad on the weekend or wasting half a can of shave cream messing about with an old Gillette safety razor without the blade in it. That's what gets us in the thought process of needing to shave in the first place.

I had a wee stripe on my upper lip when I joined the Army and barely needed to shave once a week. Boot camp started the daily shaving regimen, as the military frowns upon facial hair, and after my soldiering days were over I let the facial hair grow out a bit. I couldn't bear the thought of a big bushy Grizzly Adams beard circa 1977 so I went with a short jawline beard, longer than the Don Johnson or George Michael stubble but still pretty short. I kept that for a couple years and then decided to go with a Van Dyke goatee, since that was all the rage at the time.

I loved the show as a kid but I can't grow a beard that big.

I kept the goatee for several years before going back to the jawline beard. It breaks up the roundness of my face pretty well. Y'know, fellas, you really have to pick your facial hair design to compliment your face's  shape. If you have a narrow long face, a long beard just makes it that much longer. If you have a Charlie Brown-type round melon, a beard makes it less round. Honestly, I would avoid just a mustache by itself. The solo 'stache is a weird 70's retro throwback that calls to mind skeevy porn stars and used car salesmen.And unless you're Amish, a Mennonite, or a tugboat captain, a beard sans mustache is also a no-go.

No. A thousand times no.

I recommend you get an inexpensive trimmer to keep the facial hair tidy. The average one is about 20 bucks. Mine is a Wahl and works great. To trim things down, start with the guard that gives the longest hair, trim things up, and if that isn't short enough to suit you, keep going with shorter guards till you achieve the desired effect. I myself use the shortest guard.


Something that generally benefits your skin is to exfoliate. That scrubs away the dead skin cells that, among other things, can clog your razor and keep the blade from making good contact. You can go with the St. Ives Apricot scrub, and I hear that AXE has a new scrub. If you're really feeling like treating yourself invest in the minty scrub from Clinique. Yeah, I know, I know...it's from the makeup counter at the upscale mall store but it works. It used to come in a cannister jar but now I think it's in a more manly tube.

Another helpful tip: shave in the shower. Sure, we're used to the tried & true shave-in-the-the-mirror-at-the-sink method. The benefit of the sink is it's usually well-lit and you have a big mirror to work with. Admittedly those fog-proof shaving mirrors for the shower are seldom very clear or very fog-resistant, let alone fog proof, but it's still a worthwhile investment unless you really think you can do it strictly by feel.

Warning: May or may not stay clear as you shave without you squirting water on it often.

Why the shower? Two very solid reasons. First, the key to a great shave without getting razor burn is lubrication & moisture. Your skin (and the shave lather) can dry out at the sink and that can cause nicks and scrapes. I only shave at the sink as a last resort. The other reason is the hot water will soften your whisker bristles and make for an easier shave.

Shave cream vs Shave gel?

 Neither for me. Sure, you can use the cheaper jumbo can of Barbasol we grew up on. It's been around forever and it's easy on the wallet. For me, though, I've found that lathery creams clog the bejeezus out of the razor. And the gels, like Edge or Gillette...they look all cool & sci-fi hi-tech when they hit your palm in a blue gel puddle, but, well, when you lather it, what does it become? Shave Cream. Less thick than the Old School Cream, but still cream nonetheless.

I gave up the gels & what not when I started to shave my head. I was really concerned about razor rash and shaving bumps on my melon, especially the first few shaves, so I decided to try the more exotic approach. I can recommend three products, all readily available and reasonably priced. The first one I tried was Bump Stopper Shave Gel. It's a bit thick and tended to clog the razor almost as bad as shave cream but it's easy on the sensitive skin of your scalp. I then tried Bump Patrol, and it works great, both in the shower and at the sink. I like it a lot. I recently tried the shave gel from Bald Guyz, and it works better in the shower than at the sink.

RAZORS: What to use?

Yeah, that's the $25,000 question. Every time I turn around there's some hot new razor on the market with slick new features and 26 blades and lasers and soothing strips and a latte maker...and they all promise the greatest shaving experience ever. Bullshit.

I can't see paying ten bucks for the razor and twenty for new blade cartridges, and then six months from now the razor is no longer sold and you need to switch again. I honestly get just as good results from disposable razors. Not the cheap-assed flimsy ones. Those are only single or double bladed and will hack you to ribbons. They make disposable clones of several of the big-name 3 and 4-blade refill razors and they work just as good. It's up to you though on refill vs. disposable razors.

This will rip your skin to shreds while leaving your hair intact to taunt you.

What about an electric razor? Honestly, I have never found an electric that gave me anything resembling a clean, close shave. If you have, more power to you.

Straight razor? I'm not that brave. Nope. Sorry. Vintage retro nostalgia cool factor be damned.

 

How about a splash of after shave? Um, no. Nothing like slapping some alcohol-based stink-infused potion into your open pores and freshly-scraped skin to make you wish you'd been smarter. Ask yourself why you would do that... If you're doing it for the great smell of Brut, slap yourself. That's what will make you smell like a strip club bathroom, layering an after shave on top of your body wash and deodorant combo to clash like hell. (I'll be covering this in an upcoming post). But if your skin is irritated and you need a post-shave soother, that's another matter entirely. There are a variety of products out there, like the ones from Neutrogena and Nivea, but I use the Gillette when I'm irritated from shaving too fast in a hurry. Just get the unscented one so it doesn't clash with your body wash and deodorant. I'm curious to try the new one from Axe though.

Shaving cuts? Invest in a styptic pencil. Trust me.

Some of you will actually go out in public like this, and that makes me sad.

Seriously, go invest.

Okay, gents. That about covers it. Go forth and sin no more. Who's got your back? I do.

New Lotion Update

A couple weeks ago I did an article on skin care & choosing a decent lotion. At the time, Gold Bond for Men (or more properly Gold Bond Ultimate Men's Essentials Lotion & Cream) hadn't hit the store shelves yet so it didn't get included in the article. Now you have another quality choice for your skin care. They claim it absorbs into your skin in 15 seconds & won't clog pores so you don't feel greasy, which is symptomatic of Gold Bond lotions. I haven't tried it out personally but I trust the brand. Like GI Joe used to say, now you know and knowing is half the battle.

I'm glad you're using lotion now. Your hands used to be so rough.

Who's got your back? I do.

The trouble with hair is...

...it grows back. Or, in some cases, it doesn't, at least not where you want it to.

We've already covered my thoughts on haircuts, but what about when you're losing your hair?

I myself had to come to grips with the fact that while my hair would grow rapidly, it simply wasn't growing in all the places it used to. I was, in fact, going bald at the crown and my hairline wasn't just receding it was in full-fledged retreat. This was just before I turned 40, and in addition to that milestone birthday and its associated stresses both real & imagined, I had a serious decision to make concerning my hair.

No sane rational man does a comb-over. It looks ridiculous. No one takes you seriously with a comb-over, not even Donald Trump.

This comb-over defies explanation

 Even worse is a rug. Most toupees or hair pieces look like someone sat a dead rat on your head.

I couldn't face the notion of just going bald down the middle and having a ring of hair around the sides & back. That simply wasn't for me. Might work for Terry Bradshaw or Hulk Hogan, but not me.

Nope, I decided that once the receding hairline was about to meet the expanding bald spot it was time to take it all off and shave it bald. It's not an easy decision to make. But, you have to remember, you're probably already so bald it won't be a drastic change or if you don't like it, the hair you still have will grow back. Now, if you aren't suffering any hair loss it's a little bit bigger decision I suppose, but again, it'll grow back.

Not every head shape is right for rockin' the bald look. Some heads are dented, misshapen, pointed, etc. Mine is pretty evenly round, not completely unlike Charlie Brown I suppose. I lucked out & have a good head shape for it. Also, I find that it usually works better if you also have some sort of beard or goatee as a counterbalance. Note, I said counterbalance as opposed to compensation. Some guys grow facial hair to make up for going bald, and that's not cool. Going bald? OWN IT.

Besides, a scientific study has said that men with shaved heads look more dominant. And as an added bonus, no gray hair! My hair is naturally going silver up the sides but since I shave it a couple times a week, I look at least ten years younger than I am.

Tip: If you decide to rock the bald, remember that you no longer have hair to block the sun and to use sunscreen or wear a hat out in the sun, at least till your scalp adjusts. A sunburn on your scalp is a cast-iron bitch. Been there, done that.

I recommend using a set of trimmers without the guard attached to shave your head as close as possible before you break out the razor.  Be patient and don't rush, because scalp cuts bleed easily and take awhile to stop. Plus, you don't want your melon looking like it was attacked by a rogue cheesegrater.

I suppose next we need to tackle my handy shaving tips for both the face and the scalp, including razor selection and choosing the right shave goo. Stay tuned for our next episode!

Who's got your back? I do.

It's a Gear Bag, not a Man Purse.

Face it, sometimes you end up needing to carry extra shit with you but it's a nuisance to have full pockets loaded with necessities. Or, sometimes you wish you had something with you, or at least in proximity, but it's just not feasible or practical to carry it with you on your person.

Sometimes you simply have no pockets. Take the Scottish kilt, for example; they have no pockets traditionally and thus the Scots came up with the sporran. The sporran was eventually bastardized in the 80s to become the Fanny Pack. Fanny packs were never cool. Ever.

Stylin' and profilin'. Rockin' the kilt and a tasteful sporran to hold a few items.

How many layers of wrong do we see?

 The only acceptable use for a fanny pack these days is if you're jogging in a dodgy area and want to coneal-carry your handgun.

We'll make an exception for concealed carry.

I'm guilty of having once been the guy with too much stuff in his pockets. I'd have the wallet, pocket change, a couple pens, a small bottle of contact lens drops, a travel tube of Advil and Zantac, maybe a tube of Carmex, possibly a pocket knife. I even occasionally had a notepad or a small sleeve of business cards.

I travel about 50 miles each way to work and I wear contacts. Sometimes you just want to have either a spare set of contacts for an emergency or a pair of glasses to switch into and when you're an hour away from home that ain't an easy feat. What if you want to bring along an e-reader (I have a Kindle) or an iPad or an iPad Mini?

This is how the Man Bag came about. Some derisively call it a Man Purse or Murse. There's an even worse term which I'll get to in a minute. I've seen them called Satchel, Courier Bag, Messenger Bag, and the lamest of the lame, The European Carry-All. The Man Bag keeps all your necessities and/or extras handy, without the lost hiker look of carrying a backpack, without the first day of school look of carrying an LL Bean bookbag knapsack, and without the Gulf War look of carrying an old ALICE pack. I had an LL Bean pack even into college. but it was the University of Maine and it was socially acceptable to have Bean gear. My buddy Chris, a former Marine, carried all his gear in an ALICE pack without the frame.

Unless you live in Maine, this screams I'm still in high school.

After work I'm climbing K2. You wanna come?

An ALICE pack, like I had in the Army, without frame. ALICE is short for All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment. Gotta love all them military acronyms.

The frame stiffened the pack, like a civilian hiking pack, and gave you kidney pads, necessary on road marches but not for commuting. You're not the Unabomber.

I finally decided (with nudging from Mrs. Wingman) enough was enough, that I needed to carry less stuff on my person, especially if it was stuff I wasn't necessarily going to need immediately in the course of my normal duty day, because I was like one step away from needing a Batman utility belt. So last Christmas Mrs. Wingman got me my Man Bag. I don't actually carry it on my person all day; it gets tossed in the car at the start of the day, goes into work with me and gets placed in the locker room, and then comes home with me later. It's got my stuff if I need it, but not hanging on my side all day. Some of you, I'm sure, commute via train or subway or bus instead of car, and hoof it on foot to the office from the nearest stop. A man bag is perfect for carrying your necessities without looking like a doofus or a poof. Some guys, despite alleged machismo, royally screw up the Man Bag concept.

Who the hell still tight-rolls their pants? WTF is with those shoes? And does your mom know you stole her purse?

Man Bag Fail. That's a frikkin' Louis Vuitton purse.

Basketball hero Steve Nash failing HUGE with a purse, a pastel salmon sweater, and a bow tie. Pink can be cool if done right, and the tie can be cool if done right but not with a pink sweater that highlights how skinny you are. Mr. Rogers looks positively butch in comparison.

Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray, sporting an ugly purse.

This is an acceptable man bag application. Not sissy, not huge, not flashy.

I guess a part of me had always wanted a bag for my spare gear. In the Army a lot of guys hooked
themselves up with the old olive-drab canvas map bags that the less politically correct and homophobic called Fag Bags. Many would customize them by sewing on one of their name tapes from their fatigues and sewing on the patches from units they'd served in. That raised the Macho Factor a lot. I got myself a bag but never got around to sewing my stuff on before I got out of the Army, and the bag got lost later on. Long story...

Prime example of a map bag, minus the musty canvas stink of Army gear.

Fast forward several years.

I personally have a Scout bag from Australian company STM. I wanted a moderately priced bag that resembled the military map bag and this one fit the bill perfectly. It has a padded internal compartment perfect for an iPad or e-reader, and it will hold my pistol in a pinch. I plan on adding my patches to it. Right now it's got a few pens, a notepad, my MP3 player and headphones, a pair of glasses, a contact lens case, pocket knife, eye drops, Carmex, and some Advil. That means my pants pockets contain my wallet, one pen, and a couple coins. Much simpler. The bag was only 30 bucks when we got it but it seems the price is higher now.

If you only have a few small items to carry without looking all purse-like, you might opt for the Rothco Venturer. It looks like a small camera case and is bargain priced.

Rothco Venturer

If you need a bigger bag to carry a laptop plus your pistol, the Dillon Conceal Carry Tote might work for you.It's a steal at $45.

Stylish and functional

If you have a few extra bucks and need a rugged, sizable pack with a multitude of uses, (and if I needed a different bag from what I currently have) it looks like you can't go wrong with the Maxpedition Jumbo Versipack. It's customizable in 16 color combinations, can be carried on the shoulder or the hip, and holds a variety of gear. A little more expensive at $99, but worth it.

Why do I suggest a subtle military-look bag? Because a prissy bag may not stand up to the rigors of daily use, and if you should find yourself in a dodgy area or situation where nefarious chaps up to no good could be looking for a crime of opportunity, a flashy expensive-looking leather bag says "MUG ME AND STEAL MY SHIT". And the bigger the bag the more attention it attracts and it may have lots of booty inside. A more rugged bag can hold up better if some douchebag tries to yank it off your shoulder. If it rains on you, leather can get ruined.

This begs to be stolen. If you have $300 bucks to blow on a man bag, you MUST have cool stuff in there.

While the guy on the left is climbing Kilimanjaro the guy on the right has stuff to steal, barely hanging on his shoulder from a thin strap.

One last bag before I go. The German company Koffski has a clever bag that looks and fits like a shoulder holster for a handgun. Keeps your stuff real handy. Find out more about it here, or at Koffski's website.

Who's got your back? I do.